A heavenly tribute to Teddy Foltz
Nicolas Stafford holds onto balloons outside the home in Struthers where Teddy Foltz, 14, was living when he was beaten to death by his mother’s boyfriend.
By Bob Jackson
STRUTHERS
The brightly colored balloons drifting upward over Creed Street on Sunday afternoon stood in stark contrast against the gray, cold sky toward which they floated.
Likewise, the lightness of the balloons was a sharp contrast to the heavy hearts of those who’d released them.
But everyone agreed it was fitting that the balloons were lifting toward the heavens, from where they said Teddy Foltz was surely watching and smiling.
The balloons were released to mark the one-year anniversary of 14-year-old Teddy’s death, and to call attention to the issue of child abuse. The brief ceremony occurred in front of 28 Creed St., which is where Teddy was living at the time with his younger twin brothers, his mother, Shane Widdersheim, and her boyfriend, Zaryl Bush.
Authorities said Bush repeatedly terrorized and tortured Teddy by slamming his head into walls, punching him, making him walk over hot coals, and forcing him to stand outside in cold weather until he was frostbitten. They said that when Teddy tried unsuccessfully to run away from home, Bush beat him so severely that he was hospitalized for five days before he died Jan. 26, 2013.
“At least now I can smile and know he’s in heaven,” said Sara Foltz, Teddy’s grandmother. “There’s no more pain.”
Bush pleaded guilty seven months ago to charges including murder and child endangering. His plea came just days after Widdersheim also had pleaded guilty to felony charges for allowing the abuse to take place. Both have been sentenced to prison.
Sara Foltz remembered Teddy as a happy child who loved going with her to First United Methodist Church in Hubbard.
“He would come home and tell his grandfather all about the service,” she said. “He would almost repeat the sermons word for word. He was special.”
Pastor Dan Yargo, who was pastor of the Hubbard church at the time and now leads Christ Community Church in Campbell, said the memory of Teddy’s “jovial spirit” is what sticks with him the most.
“He was just a fun kid,” Pastor Yargo said. “He was very affectionate. He would give me huge hugs. I remember a couple of times he almost knocked me backward from hugging me.”
He also recalled Teddy as “precocious,” noting that the boy always would have countless questions or comments after the children’s sermons at church.
“He was loving, he was generous, and he was caring,” Yargo said. “His smile is a memory that cannot be taken from us. But we do also have to remember the tragedy that took him from us.”
Kelly Plummer, Teddy’s godmother, said he also had a strong love of history and science.
“He knew all the presidents. He could recite them frontwards and backward,” she said.
And, she said, he had a fondness for Chinese food.
“When we would talk about where to go [to eat], Teddy always wanted to go to a Chinese place and have a competition to see who could eat the fastest with chopsticks,” she said. “He always won.”
While the more than two dozen people who’d come to take part in the remembrance huddled and braced against Sunday afternoon’s cold temperatures, Sara Foltz said Teddy would have embraced it.
“He’d be having a blast. He loved winter,” she said with a wide smile. “Teddy came into this world during a snowstorm on Jan. 15, 1999. I remember it snowed so hard that day, I couldn’t even get into a parking space at Northside Hospital.”
The small crowd of people outside the house, which now stands vacant, included Teddy’s family, friends, some classmates from Struthers Middle School and Detective Jeff Lewis of the Struthers Police Department, who investigated the case.
Plummer said she hopes that Teddy’s case will encourage others to speak out about possible child-abuse situations so no one else will have to suffer the way Teddy did.
“No child should have to live in that kind of fear,” she said.